January 20, 2024 • 13 mins
Get ready, chocolate lovers! The Chocolate Expo is coming into town, and no matter how you like your chocolate, they promise you'll find something you can't get enough of. Not only will there be dozens of vendors offering tastes of chocolate-laced products and special giveaways, but attendees will also have a chance to meet some Hollywood stars from the original Wonka movie. Larry Rosenberg, Associate Producer of The Chocolate Expo and owner of Bacon Bites, talks with Nichole this week about all the sugary joy they have to offer during their upcoming event in Wilmington.
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(00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend. Each week
we come together and talk about allthe topics important to you and the place
where you live. As always greatto be back with you again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. So when itcomes to snacks, I have to
admit chocolate is not my first thingto lean on because I guess I'm more
of the type who likes chocolate inlittle spurts, like a chocolate chip cookie
(00:31):
with very few chocolate chips. Oneof my favorite things. If you weave
chocolate into certain foods, like achocolate bobka that's really good coat, something
that's salty, like a chocolate coveredpotato chip. Hmm, Chef's kiss love
it. Maybe though you are notlike me and you're completely different, and
you imagine yourself swimming in chocolate likeAugustus Gloop in the Wonka movie or something,
(00:53):
or just like shoving it in yourmouth, whatever your desire, the
Chocolate Expo says it can help yousatisfy your sweet tooth. Coming back to
the Shriner's Auditorium in Wilmington next weekendand they are promising something for absolutely everybody
involved. The expo was run bythe Bomb Image Group, which is spearheaded
by Marvin Baum. And one ofthe people on the ground making this shine,
making it work is Larry Rosenberg,who is here with us on the
(01:15):
show now. Larry, by theway, is a chef in his own
right. You have likely seen himon Food Network Competing. He's been on
that a couple of times. He'sall about the combo of chocolate and bacon.
This man is a bacon evangelist.I love this, Larry. It
is so good to have you withus here on the show. Tell us
first a bit more about the expo. Marvin. Back in I believe it
(01:38):
was two thousand and four, hewas the official Woodstock thirty fifth anniversary celebration
under the license of the Woodstock Venues, and he had decided that he was
going to do a chocolate expo.And he's been around since two thousand and
(02:01):
six. I joined him in twothousand and nine and it's been crazy.
It's fairly expanding. We're probably thelargest chocolate event in the United States these
days. And we took a breakfor COVID, unfortunately, I think everybody
did. And it's not like anormal it's festival it's not like Halloween.
(02:27):
You know, you're just come andwe throw candy in your bag. We
have craft vendors and we want youto enjoy, taste, sample, free
entertainment, chefs, celebrity chefs.We have the longer characters this year,
and we have for the kids zone, we have balloom paint, balloon twisting
face painting, which is free.It's included with a mission, and most
(02:53):
places you go to they charge.So we're all about chocolate food and lots
of fun. And when you talkabout chocolate food, we're not just talking
about chocolate cake or chocolate doughnut orlike your typical stuff that you could get.
I mean expand here for us ifyou could about just how far outreaching
we're talking when it comes to chocolatefood. Well, I'm probably the most
(03:15):
reached out because I have chocolate coveredbacon, which is not genrmal. But
we have things like chocolate hot sauceand chocolate bond bonds, and chocolate honey,
and chocolate wine, and chocolate cookiesand chocolate coffee and all kinds of
chocolate. Is chocolate, Cano's chocolatepretzels. We have everything you can possibly
(03:39):
imagine that's chocolate. I would walkin there and probably get full within like
fifteen minutes. How do you makesure that people can sample so much and
not just get completely full up soquick? Well, you just you walk
around from vendor to vendor and you, you know, try a sample,
and the samples are not you know, it's not like you're getting a whole
(04:01):
candy bar. For example, Ido chocolate covered bacon. You get a
piece of chocolate covered bake and it'syou know, it's cut from the strip,
it's pre packaged, and you getto taste. So you're going to
go and try things that you wantto and then if people like what they
are trying, can they buy directlyat the expo? Or yes, they
(04:24):
can buy from the vendors. Everythingthere is for sale, the wines,
that chocolate, the cupcakes, theice cream, and we have other things
besides chocolate. We do have youknow, food, We have empanadas and
chiros and Cuban sandwiches and all.We have canoles and pickles and pickles are
(04:47):
not chocolate. And although we havedone chocolate covered pickles, and I've done
it for him with chocolate covered pickleswith bacon. It's a lot of fun.
How does the chocolate covered pickle taste? Pickles? I love bacon and
I like chocolate, so how wouldthat taste? You know? When I
first heard about Marvin's show back intwo thousand and nine, I went to
(05:09):
the show and he had a companythat was doing chocolate covered pickles. So,
just to give you a little insight, when I called Marvin, who
is you know kosher? It keepskosher? And I called and I said,
I'd like to do the show.I was just starting out and he
asked me what I sold and Isaid, chocolate covered bacon. Click didn't
(05:29):
want. I called them back afterthe show because I went to the show
and I said, you know,you had somebody, yeah, selling chocolate
covered pickles. You think chocolate coveredbacon's weird? That's really weird. And
he said, you know what,It's sold out in minutes. People loved
it. They wanted things that aredifferent. And he let me join the
show, and little did I knowI was going to be working with him
(05:50):
down the road, you know.I mean they've got all sorts of stuff
you go to, like the fairsand the county fairs and stuff like that,
and it seems like these days youcan put chocolate it or deep fry
anything like you can do chocolate coveredpotato chips. I've had those. Chocolate
covered gummy bears are super good.What is the most favorite? So I
have been ruined on gummy bears andI love gummy bears, but now if
(06:13):
they don't have chocolate on them,it's just not the same. But what
besides the pickles, what would yousay is the weirdest or most far out
food you've had with chocolate on it. That's a good question because I've eaten
a lot of things with chocolate.But weird to me probably the pretzels that
because they're not the hard pretzels,they're soft pretzels and they have chocolate on
(06:34):
them. Yeah, that's it's alittle strange. You know. We have
things like candles that look like foodand they smell like chocolate. Wow,
And you can't eat them, butyou want to. One of the gals,
Christy, who is from New Hampshire, she has a company called Soapery
and she's part of our team andshe has chocolate soaps and a matter of
(06:59):
fact, I was talking the othernight, so you know, anything special
for Wonker And she's got some sortof lavender soap that turns purple or it's
purple and turns lavender for Willy Wonka. By the way, speaking of Wonka,
let's talk about that because that isa huge deal to me, I'd
say, especially because we have thenewer Wonka movie that just came out,
which I saw was quite interesting.Okay, I haven't seen it yet,
(07:23):
so don't spoil it for me,but I do know that spoil Thank you,
Timothy Shalomye. I knows in that. But we're talking the original cast
here, like Gene Wilder Willy Wonkamovie, right, Yes, the Gene
Wilder Willy Wonka movie. As amatter of fact, at one point we
had looked into getting Gene Wilder,but he was very sick and unfortunately passed
(07:43):
away, and he had never beento the Chocolate expo. But the original
character is the movie's great I lovethe original movie, and this is the
first time that we have the fourlast living characters from the movie doing a
(08:03):
chocolate expo in the United States.We're flying him in from England and Germany
in California, all over the place, and we have Peter Ostrom, which
was Charlie Buckett, and Julie dornCole who was Rucus Salt, and we
have Paris Semon who's been with usbefore. He's the Golden Ticket Mike TV.
(08:24):
And of course Rusty got the LastOpapa, which I can't wait to
see. Oh my gosh, that'sgoing to be so funny. And he's
been in a few other things otherthan Willie Wonka. He's Harry Potter movies
and Star Wars movies. A matterof fact, it was funny because Paris
Demon. There's a new show ontelevision called My Family and it's Paris Is
(08:50):
in one of the in the audience. Paris has actually done Jeopardy. I
believe his wife also did Jeopardy.Well, then, I guess the most
important thing to know is where canpeople get tickets? Where is this being
held? When is this being held? And how can people come get all
this chocolate? Okay, well,it is being held the twenty seventh and
(09:11):
the twenty eighth at the Shriner's Auditoriumin Wilmington, and it's the VIP.
Tickets are from nine thirty to ten. I believe Saturday is sold out,
but there's still some tickets for Sunday. It's two days Basically, it's from
ten am to six pm both daysand the tickets are available online at the
(09:35):
Chocolate Expo dot Com. Pricing levelshere are we talking from VIP to normal
admission ten dollars to ten dollars toforty dollars. Is a late day special
which I believe is ten or fifteendollars. There's children's tickets which are less
VIP I believe is forty and theVIP will get a bag which will have
(09:58):
a Chocolate Expo bar, chocolate barand a chocolate raspberry lip bomb, and
there's a surprise in some of thebags. We've decided to do some golden
tickets. Each day there will befive randomly placed brown envelopes with a golden
ticket and if you get the goldenticket, it's worth twenty five dollars.
(10:20):
You can go to any vendor andhand them the ticket and get twenty five
dollars worth of product and at theend of the day we will take care
of the vendor. And I musttell you we have a sponsor this year.
We have besides Worldwide Chocolate, Bailey'sis doing the new Chocolate Liqueur and
(10:43):
they're going to be sampling for adults. The new chocolate Liqueur on Ice,
and we have Grantite State Freestride Candywho's in New Hampshire and very popular and
he's promoted. We're doing a chocolatesmash which I will be running. I
have an eleven pound chocolate bar milkchocolate with a Wanka wrapper on it and
(11:07):
little hammers, and we're going toinvite twelve kids each day to come up
and smash the bar. Everybody willget to taste and the twelve lucky children
that get to smash will get aenvelope and it will have a twenty five
dollars gift certificate to go to Granitefree State free Dride Candy and get some
(11:30):
candy. The kids love this FreezeDride candy. I have never had it.
It is super popular right now.It's super super super super popular.
Hopefully it's not a fad. Youknow, when I did chocolate colored bacon
back in two thousand and nine,everybody thought it was a fad, you
know, but you know, thingscome and go. You had the frozen
yoga that was a fad. Thereare things that you know just come and
(11:52):
go. And I think one luckywinner there's going to be a drawer and
one lucky winner will get a year'ssupply of freeze drive candy and get to
go to the factory and make someand help them make it, get a
tour of the factory, get theirown Wonka esque experience, just not quite
so creepy. Lawrence Ian loving this. So if people want to find out
(12:18):
more, give us your website.Where can they find you? It's the
Chocolate Expo dot com. Okay,and you can find us on Facebook,
Instagram as well. But the ticketsto Chocolateexpo dot com, we asked that
people buy the tickets ahead of timeto avoid the lines. And for example,
(12:39):
last year it was a one dayshow and we had about seventy eight
hundred people and we turned away peoplebecause we didn't have the room. And
so if you didn't buy a ticketand you were waiting online, the problem.
So we encourage you to get yourtickets early. I have a safe
and healthy weekend, and stay warmthis weekend. It is going to be
fridgid. Join me again next weekfor another edition of the show. I'm
(13:03):
Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio oniHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend. Each week
we come together and talk about allthe topics important to you and the place
where you live. As always greatto be back with you again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. So when itcomes to snacks, I have to
admit chocolate is not my first thingto lean on because I guess I'm more
of the type who likes chocolate inlittle spurts, like a chocolate chip cookie
(00:31):
with very few chocolate chips. Oneof my favorite things. If you weave
chocolate into certain foods, like achocolate bobka that's really good coat, something
that's salty, like a chocolate coveredpotato chip. Hmm, Chef's kiss love
it. Maybe though you are notlike me and you're completely different, and
you imagine yourself swimming in chocolate likeAugustus Gloop in the Wonka movie or something,
(00:53):
or just like shoving it in yourmouth, whatever your desire, the
Chocolate Expo says it can help yousatisfy your sweet tooth. Coming back to
the Shriner's Auditorium in Wilmington next weekendand they are promising something for absolutely everybody
involved. The expo was run bythe Bomb Image Group, which is spearheaded
by Marvin Baum. And one ofthe people on the ground making this shine,
making it work is Larry Rosenberg,who is here with us on the
(01:15):
show now. Larry, by theway, is a chef in his own
right. You have likely seen himon Food Network Competing. He's been on
that a couple of times. He'sall about the combo of chocolate and bacon.
This man is a bacon evangelist.I love this, Larry. It
is so good to have you withus here on the show. Tell us
first a bit more about the expo. Marvin. Back in I believe it
(01:38):
was two thousand and four, hewas the official Woodstock thirty fifth anniversary celebration
under the license of the Woodstock Venues, and he had decided that he was
going to do a chocolate expo.And he's been around since two thousand and
(02:01):
six. I joined him in twothousand and nine and it's been crazy.
It's fairly expanding. We're probably thelargest chocolate event in the United States these
days. And we took a breakfor COVID, unfortunately, I think everybody
did. And it's not like anormal it's festival it's not like Halloween.
(02:27):
You know, you're just come andwe throw candy in your bag. We
have craft vendors and we want youto enjoy, taste, sample, free
entertainment, chefs, celebrity chefs.We have the longer characters this year,
and we have for the kids zone, we have balloom paint, balloon twisting
face painting, which is free.It's included with a mission, and most
(02:53):
places you go to they charge.So we're all about chocolate food and lots
of fun. And when you talkabout chocolate food, we're not just talking
about chocolate cake or chocolate doughnut orlike your typical stuff that you could get.
I mean expand here for us ifyou could about just how far outreaching
we're talking when it comes to chocolatefood. Well, I'm probably the most
(03:15):
reached out because I have chocolate coveredbacon, which is not genrmal. But
we have things like chocolate hot sauceand chocolate bond bonds, and chocolate honey,
and chocolate wine, and chocolate cookiesand chocolate coffee and all kinds of
chocolate. Is chocolate, Cano's chocolatepretzels. We have everything you can possibly
(03:39):
imagine that's chocolate. I would walkin there and probably get full within like
fifteen minutes. How do you makesure that people can sample so much and
not just get completely full up soquick? Well, you just you walk
around from vendor to vendor and you, you know, try a sample,
and the samples are not you know, it's not like you're getting a whole
(04:01):
candy bar. For example, Ido chocolate covered bacon. You get a
piece of chocolate covered bake and it'syou know, it's cut from the strip,
it's pre packaged, and you getto taste. So you're going to
go and try things that you wantto and then if people like what they
are trying, can they buy directlyat the expo? Or yes, they
(04:24):
can buy from the vendors. Everythingthere is for sale, the wines,
that chocolate, the cupcakes, theice cream, and we have other things
besides chocolate. We do have youknow, food, We have empanadas and
chiros and Cuban sandwiches and all.We have canoles and pickles and pickles are
(04:47):
not chocolate. And although we havedone chocolate covered pickles, and I've done
it for him with chocolate covered pickleswith bacon. It's a lot of fun.
How does the chocolate covered pickle taste? Pickles? I love bacon and
I like chocolate, so how wouldthat taste? You know? When I
first heard about Marvin's show back intwo thousand and nine, I went to
(05:09):
the show and he had a companythat was doing chocolate covered pickles. So,
just to give you a little insight, when I called Marvin, who
is you know kosher? It keepskosher? And I called and I said,
I'd like to do the show.I was just starting out and he
asked me what I sold and Isaid, chocolate covered bacon. Click didn't
(05:29):
want. I called them back afterthe show because I went to the show
and I said, you know,you had somebody, yeah, selling chocolate
covered pickles. You think chocolate coveredbacon's weird? That's really weird. And
he said, you know what,It's sold out in minutes. People loved
it. They wanted things that aredifferent. And he let me join the
show, and little did I knowI was going to be working with him
(05:50):
down the road, you know.I mean they've got all sorts of stuff
you go to, like the fairsand the county fairs and stuff like that,
and it seems like these days youcan put chocolate it or deep fry
anything like you can do chocolate coveredpotato chips. I've had those. Chocolate
covered gummy bears are super good.What is the most favorite? So I
have been ruined on gummy bears andI love gummy bears, but now if
(06:13):
they don't have chocolate on them,it's just not the same. But what
besides the pickles, what would yousay is the weirdest or most far out
food you've had with chocolate on it. That's a good question because I've eaten
a lot of things with chocolate.But weird to me probably the pretzels that
because they're not the hard pretzels,they're soft pretzels and they have chocolate on
(06:34):
them. Yeah, that's it's alittle strange. You know. We have
things like candles that look like foodand they smell like chocolate. Wow,
And you can't eat them, butyou want to. One of the gals,
Christy, who is from New Hampshire, she has a company called Soapery
and she's part of our team andshe has chocolate soaps and a matter of
(06:59):
fact, I was talking the othernight, so you know, anything special
for Wonker And she's got some sortof lavender soap that turns purple or it's
purple and turns lavender for Willy Wonka. By the way, speaking of Wonka,
let's talk about that because that isa huge deal to me, I'd
say, especially because we have thenewer Wonka movie that just came out,
which I saw was quite interesting.Okay, I haven't seen it yet,
(07:23):
so don't spoil it for me,but I do know that spoil Thank you,
Timothy Shalomye. I knows in that. But we're talking the original cast
here, like Gene Wilder Willy Wonkamovie, right, Yes, the Gene
Wilder Willy Wonka movie. As amatter of fact, at one point we
had looked into getting Gene Wilder,but he was very sick and unfortunately passed
(07:43):
away, and he had never beento the Chocolate expo. But the original
character is the movie's great I lovethe original movie, and this is the
first time that we have the fourlast living characters from the movie doing a
(08:03):
chocolate expo in the United States.We're flying him in from England and Germany
in California, all over the place, and we have Peter Ostrom, which
was Charlie Buckett, and Julie dornCole who was Rucus Salt, and we
have Paris Semon who's been with usbefore. He's the Golden Ticket Mike TV.
(08:24):
And of course Rusty got the LastOpapa, which I can't wait to
see. Oh my gosh, that'sgoing to be so funny. And he's
been in a few other things otherthan Willie Wonka. He's Harry Potter movies
and Star Wars movies. A matterof fact, it was funny because Paris
Demon. There's a new show ontelevision called My Family and it's Paris Is
(08:50):
in one of the in the audience. Paris has actually done Jeopardy. I
believe his wife also did Jeopardy.Well, then, I guess the most
important thing to know is where canpeople get tickets? Where is this being
held? When is this being held? And how can people come get all
this chocolate? Okay, well,it is being held the twenty seventh and
(09:11):
the twenty eighth at the Shriner's Auditoriumin Wilmington, and it's the VIP.
Tickets are from nine thirty to ten. I believe Saturday is sold out,
but there's still some tickets for Sunday. It's two days Basically, it's from
ten am to six pm both daysand the tickets are available online at the
(09:35):
Chocolate Expo dot Com. Pricing levelshere are we talking from VIP to normal
admission ten dollars to ten dollars toforty dollars. Is a late day special
which I believe is ten or fifteendollars. There's children's tickets which are less
VIP I believe is forty and theVIP will get a bag which will have
(09:58):
a Chocolate Expo bar, chocolate barand a chocolate raspberry lip bomb, and
there's a surprise in some of thebags. We've decided to do some golden
tickets. Each day there will befive randomly placed brown envelopes with a golden
ticket and if you get the goldenticket, it's worth twenty five dollars.
(10:20):
You can go to any vendor andhand them the ticket and get twenty five
dollars worth of product and at theend of the day we will take care
of the vendor. And I musttell you we have a sponsor this year.
We have besides Worldwide Chocolate, Bailey'sis doing the new Chocolate Liqueur and
(10:43):
they're going to be sampling for adults. The new chocolate Liqueur on Ice,
and we have Grantite State Freestride Candywho's in New Hampshire and very popular and
he's promoted. We're doing a chocolatesmash which I will be running. I
have an eleven pound chocolate bar milkchocolate with a Wanka wrapper on it and
(11:07):
little hammers, and we're going toinvite twelve kids each day to come up
and smash the bar. Everybody willget to taste and the twelve lucky children
that get to smash will get aenvelope and it will have a twenty five
dollars gift certificate to go to Granitefree State free Dride Candy and get some
(11:30):
candy. The kids love this FreezeDride candy. I have never had it.
It is super popular right now.It's super super super super popular.
Hopefully it's not a fad. Youknow, when I did chocolate colored bacon
back in two thousand and nine,everybody thought it was a fad, you
know, but you know, thingscome and go. You had the frozen
yoga that was a fad. Thereare things that you know just come and
(11:52):
go. And I think one luckywinner there's going to be a drawer and
one lucky winner will get a year'ssupply of freeze drive candy and get to
go to the factory and make someand help them make it, get a
tour of the factory, get theirown Wonka esque experience, just not quite
so creepy. Lawrence Ian loving this. So if people want to find out
(12:18):
more, give us your website.Where can they find you? It's the
Chocolate Expo dot com. Okay,and you can find us on Facebook,
Instagram as well. But the ticketsto Chocolateexpo dot com, we asked that
people buy the tickets ahead of timeto avoid the lines. And for example,
(12:39):
last year it was a one dayshow and we had about seventy eight
hundred people and we turned away peoplebecause we didn't have the room. And
so if you didn't buy a ticketand you were waiting online, the problem.
So we encourage you to get yourtickets early. I have a safe
and healthy weekend, and stay warmthis weekend. It is going to be
fridgid. Join me again next weekfor another edition of the show. I'm
(13:03):
Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio oniHeartRadio.
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